


How To Fall

by we_are_not_soldiers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bottom Dean, Cuties, Fallen Castiel, How Do I Tag, M/M, Making Love, Making Out, Outdoor Sex, POV Third Person, Sam Is Scarred For Life, Top Castiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 11:25:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1508765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_are_not_soldiers/pseuds/we_are_not_soldiers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 8 Finale. Castiel is fallen, Dean takes the blame, and Sam is scarred for life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Fall

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first actual fanfic, non beta'd. if i make any mistakes please let me know c:  
> the chapter title is song lyrics from In This Moment.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel had to learn how to fall right somehow.

Smoky purple fingers of dusk light reached across the cabin and onto the caramel colored cedar floor. A sigh eight shades of wistful grey escaped Dean’s lips as he stared through the window. He and Sam had found this place in the middle of the woods in Colorado (some rich guy’s vacation cabin, probably) and they’d decided to stay here for a while, focusing on hunts within the state. They’d left the bunker temporarily, under Dean’s orders. Sam had asked why; didn’t Dean like it here? Wasn’t he immeasurably glad that they finally had a permanent place to stay? Dean cut him off and told him to quit bitching about his wanderlust. Not only had they been royally boned by heaven, again, their loss seriously, seriously sucked ass. There was no telling what the lack of angels in heaven would do to earth; possibly nothing… but probably something big, something bad, and something that Sam, Dean, and Cas would have to fix. Again. Sam had rolled his eyes and wandered away, muttering “Jerk,” under his breath.  
There was something about that place right now, though, that drew out a pain from the core of his soul; some deep, dark, heavy feeling of abandonment… and loneliness. Of course, Dean was used to these feelings. All his life he’d grown up and lived believing that he was just a chess piece on the board, the king for the side of heaven; and had hell gotten a hold of him for any longer than the four months he spent there, things would’ve gotten a lot worse than they already had.  
After all the angels had fallen, no one had any leads as to how they were supposed to go on—or, more to the point, what they were even supposed to do about it. So they’d figured, what the hell; why not sleep on it for once?  
Off to his right, a light click resounded in the still mountain air, and Dean’s head turned to face Sammy, who motioned him in with his head. Cas, who was standing behind Sam, was completely silent and had his cerulean eyes facing the ground. Instinctually, he reached for his gun, then realized that the place they were entering was, for once, blissfully unoccupied. The air inside was stale and stank of mothballs, but having smelled hundreds of burning bodies, it was bearable. Sam propped open a window and a gust of air pushed in. Dean turned around and knit his eyebrows together. “Uh, Sammy? D’you let Cas off his leash or something? Where is he?” Now that heaven was empty, (fuck Metatron) Cas had no source of power. He couldn’t really zap anywhere anymore, couldn’t heal wounds, and soon, God forbid, he was going to start having to do human things—eating, sleeping… Dean suppressed a shudder and a flurry of dark thoughts dominated every crevice in his mind. Adamantly shoving them down as usual, he raised his eyebrows at his brother. “He’s outside. Just… be gentle with him, Dean. Three hours ago he watched his entire family fall from the sky on fire. That probably sucked ass.” “Just a bit,” he quipped at him, then walked out the door to find Cas now sitting on the porch, staring at the sky through the pines.  
For a blissful moment, everything was completely silent and the only noise was the sound of the two men breathing and the unbroken peace of night in the forest. The moment ended quickly with Castiel turning to face Dean, the fog of his breath curling and vanishing into the air.  
“Hello, Dean.” The familiar gravelly voice of the now ex-angel greeted him; the same emotionless words, the same iron gaze that latched onto him the moment he entered a room. But it was almost like it wasn’t even Cas. There was something about him that just seemed… dead.  
“Hey, Cas.” Dean said, hardly able to meet the man’s eyes. He cleared his throat after a few uncomfortable moments of anguished silence passed. Dean laughed nervously, trying to come up with something, anything that would comfort the broken, fading celestial being by his side. “Fuck it, Cas, I don’t even know where to start. All I have to say is… I’m sorry. The world is getting completely flipped on its back again,” Dean paused for a moment and thought, like it ever stopped flipping. “And once again my goddamn brother and I are at fault. And now your whole family is stuck to this rock with no wings to ditch with, and…” Dean trailed off again, swallowing the lump in his throat. It was his fault. Again. It was always his fault. He’d done it again and this time for thousands, millions of beings—all of them Castiel’s family. God, he was a dick. He was a huge, fucking inconsiderate dick and he should’ve been able to—stop. The hunter forced the thought on himself, pushed the emotions down again and continued. “I’m sorry.” He said again, and—without his permission—a stray tear rolled down his cheek. Just one, and Dean angrily brushed it away and refused any more to sneak out. After a good long moment of quiet thought about it, the dam of thoughts and feelings he was having about this entirely fucked up day flooded out. “I wish I could’ve done more, I don’t know how I could’ve stopped it but I feel like I should’ve been able to,I wish we could’ve somehow known this was gonna happen, I wish—“  
Dean was abruptly cut off with a quick press of Castiel’s lips to his own. It lasted half a second and consisted of chapped lips and shocked silence, nothing more.  
Dean froze when Cas pulled away. He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. Don’t react, dumbass, you’ll make it worse, he thought, the shock taking a moment to wear off. He was confused, granted, but it was… a really good kind of confused.  
“My apologies.” The Castiel murmured, turning away from Dean again, who sat in stunned silence. In the total quiet of the moment, the sound of a tear drop akin to Dean’s own hitting the heavy wooden steps they were sitting on was earsplitting. Dean turned to the angel in complete disbelief. He had never seen Cas… cry. Dean was fairly sure that of all the angels, Castiel was the most stoic in the garrison. Granted, all the other angels he’d ever met had either been total dicks (cough Gabriel cough Balthazar cough) or equally (sometimes more so) as clueless as the angel--ex-angel--beside him. But all of them had shown some sort of emotion to him—sorrow, desperation, fury. But Castiel… all he ever really got off of him was rage, or urgency, or regret. Never… despair. Because what Cas’ face had been telling him this whole time was something so much deeper than sadness. This was complete and utter loss, hopelessness at its worst… a feeling with which Dean was starkly familiar.  
Dean didn’t know what to do to comfort his friend, (and not for the first time in his life) even after everything that had happened.  
“I’ve lost everything,” the fallen angel whispered hoarsely. “My family. My friends. I have lost you and your brother in the past and I do not know how long you will desire to keep me around, now that I am useless to you. I am sorry for failing you again, Dean. You were absolutely right,” Castiel uttered in a voice so wrecked the hunter could hardly make it out. The angel cleared his throat and his shoulders shook with restrained sobs. “I always believe that I am doing the right thing. I have tended towards the actions which would help myself the most in the past, without ever realizing it, and for that I must… apologize.” Cas spit out the last word, forcing it out as though he didn’t like looking back at what he’d done that needed an apology. “For everything that I’ve done. I have been trying, and failing, to better serve heaven, and earth… and you.” The angel explained, turning towards Dean fractionally. The dim sunshine from what had now turned to twilight perfectly silhouetted Castiel’s profile. His hair was messy and you could see it sticking up in all directions and shimmering a little in the fading light, and the gentle slope of his forehead to his nose, and the supple, curved rise and fall of the lips that had touched his, pressed together firmly now to hold back the incoherent nothings, the screams, the wails that he wished to let free into the air, so those emotions might leave and never come back.  
Stop thinking about his damn lips like you’re gay, you dumb fuck. He’s a fucking angel, your friend, don’t think about him like that, Dean thought, mentally chiding himself for being such an idiot. Though, he had fallen. At this point, Cas’ grace had now fully merged with Jimmy’s body. So he’d been referring to Cas as a “he” this whole time, but now… now he really was. Shit.  
The hunter turned fully towards the angel. He had a thought. Which led to another thought, and another, and Dean cut himself off again. He thought about it. He thought about it some more. He finally reached the conclusion of “fuck it” (Yeah, Dean, he thought. You’re straight.) and put a hand on his angel’s shoulder, grabbed his tie, and yanked him forward into a bruising kiss.  
His eyes immediately fluttered shut, and Dean could feel the angel’s tears flowing freely now, thick and numerous rivulets of the salty droplets falling onto their lips. The hunter pressed more firmly on the angel, running his tongue across the seam of the angel’s lips until he granted him access. Dean could taste the salt of Castiel’s tears and licked deeply into his mouth to keep the bitterly released sorrow out of the angel. Cas choked out a sob into Dean’s mouth, which he gratefully swallowed. Their noses brushed and their teeth bumped gently, and Dean wasn’t sure he’d ever felt… safer. There was a certain feeling of security that came with trusting someone like this. The hunter ran his tongue across the roof of Castiel’s mouth before pulling away briefly, shutting his brain off so that he could accept the moment—for now.  
Dean kept his eyes firmly shut and leans his forehead on the angel. A quiet “Shh,” escaped his lips, the breath of the sound ghosting over Castiel’s lips. Their mouths were still immeasurably close as the angel trembled in Dean’s arms. He doesn’t know why he said it. He doesn’t quite regret it though. “I’m sorry, Cas,” he whispers against his lips. “It’s gonna be okay. I promise. I will not screw up this time.” Dean promises, half to himself. A heavy, watery sob seems to wrench itself out of the angel’s very core and spills into the air around them; mouth open, eyes closed, body shaking with the force of his weeping.  
“No,” Dean breathed, speech which had been meant to stay a thought, and surged forward again to kiss the angel’s despair away. Instantly, this time, Castiel’s mouth opened to Dean and he licked in deeply, whispering incoherent nothings into the angel’s mouth which he prayed to the absent Father served as comfort. The hunter placed his right hand on Cas’ jaw and his left on the back of the angel’s neck, trying to warm the cold seeping from the man’s body. Cas snaked his arms around Dean’s upper body and rested a hand on Dean’s own neck in response, pale fingers toying with the short hairs they could touch.  
Off to his left, a low creak signaled the door to the cabin opening. “Dean?” the voice of his brother cut through the low, quiet noise of the two kissing each other senseless, whispering wordless comfort to one another until the depression of the utterly failed year would wash away. “You’ve been out here for a while, are you and Cas—“ Sam stopped suddenly upon his eyes finding the two. “…okay. Um…” Sam said uncomfortably.  
Dean practically flew back into the railing behind him. “Hey, Sammy. Yeah, uh...” The hunter tucked his hands awkwardly into his pockets, gaze never leaving his feet. “I, um, I was just having a talk with Cas, here, and, uh...” Whatever lie he could’ve possibly conjured (which wouldn’t have done a single damn thing to convince Sam anyways) died on his tongue. Dean tried desperately to regain use of the handful of brain cells that he still had, thinking he could at least try for an explanation. The hunter pulled his lips into his mouth and bit them awkwardly.  
“My apologies, Sam,” Cas cut in, and Dean silently thanked him. “Dean and I are trying to sort out our feelings for each other.”  
What the hell is he thinking? What sort of answer is that? Dean closed his eyes, exhaled, and tightened his grip on his knees. White-knuckling through the palpable awkwardness of the moment, Sam just knit his eyebrows together and stared at the two of them for a second.  
“Yeah, uh, that’s cool. Um,” Sam looked away for a moment and took a deep breath. “I won’t say I knew it, but, uh, I’m just gonna go somewhere, now. I’ll, uh, scope out the woods around here. But somewhere else.” He turned before muttering a confused “jerk” under his breath. “Bitch.” Dean called back, and the front door swung shut.  
Without wasting a single moment, Castiel gently turned Dean’s head then crushed their lips together again, tilting Dean’s head once more ever so slightly so he could get better access, map out every inch of his mouth, and licked in deep to swipe at the roof of Dean's mouth.  
At that, Dean involuntarily pulled back and stifled a gasp.  
The two men fully parted for a moment, staring at one another intensely. There was a look on Castiel’s face; like happiness, curiosity, and…hunger.  
Fuck. Dean thought. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Keep your shit together, Winchester. He dared a glance at the angel again, whose head was now tilted to the side with eyes wide and searching. And yet… he couldn’t quite deny that his jeans were feeling a little tight now. Maybe too tight. Yes, he had just been kissing the fuck out of guy who he refused to acknowledge that he had actual feelings for since forever but he never thought they were, uh, anything close to this.  
“Maybe we should, uh, go inside. It’s getting dark,” Dean said awkwardly, turning away to get up.  
Upon standing, Dean stopped and turned on his heel. “Better idea; let’s go on a drive, Cas.”  
“I... I am not sure I understand what you--” “Yep, c’mon Cas, we’re goin’.” The sandy haired hunter grabbed the ex-angel’s hand and started dragging him towards the Impala. “Dean...” The man started, looking uneasily up at him. What was it with him and Sammy and wanting to talk about fucking feelings all the time?  
“Yeah, Cas? What do you have to say? That you’ve ‘loved me all along’? Because jesus FUCK, feelings are not something I wanna discuss right now.” My shit is fucked up enough, Dean thought.  
So, Dean Winchester dragged Castiel ex-Angel of the Lord into the impala, and for a minute the car was completely silent. "Dean, please, I just.." Cas began again, looking as though it was physically paining him to bind his emotions in. He forced himself to cut the sentence short, however, and crossed one arm over the other as though that would help him shut up.  
The low, steady rumble of the engine and a solid grip on the steering wheel had always been what kept him focused when he was stressed; pay attention to the road, (though he rarely did) keep your hands on the wheel, and your mind out of the gutter. At the moment, though, the hunter would not hesitate to say that it was the very thing keeping him sane.  
Neither of them could stop throwing these awkward sideways glances at each other--more so than usual--and at this point the hunter’s knuckles were turning white. Another fifteen minutes of a thick, rich quiet and they arrived at a lake which appeared to be free of any of Castiel’s family. Dean stepped out of the car and went to the passenger side to greet Cas before grabbing his hand and gently leading him down towards the shore. At first, Dean’s grip was tentative, fingers hardly touching Castiel’s, and then the angel laced them together fully and gave his hand a squeeze. A blush spread up the man’s neck. Dean Winchester was one almost wholly unused to intimate gestures; sex, sure, he could handle that. But anything else… he was almost 100% inept at dealing with that stuff. Being brought up by John Winchester had taught him that anything intimate, anything close to a chick flick moment meant weakness, which was not an option for any of the Winchesters. Ever.  
The two men found a spot on the shore free of too many loose pebbles or stones, the surface of the lake still and reflecting the moon like it was a pane of glass. Both men took a seat. Neither let go of each other’s hand. For a long time, they just looked up at the stars and listened to the steady inhale, exhale of two friends breathing. Calm. In sync. Safe.  
Silence seem to fall from the sky like rain and drew slow ripples in to the shore from the surface of the lake, and as they lapped at the sand the hunter’s tongue darted out to wet his lips.  
Sitting, staring, the tension between them crackling and sparking. Tense; unbearably so. And suddenly he’s being yanked onto an angel’s lap, whose lips are suddenly attached to his own and moving on his like he means business and okay, maybe Dean’s a little turned on by that but the growing hardness in his jeans certainly speaks nothing of it.  
Fingers dragged up and down Dean’s thighs, clutching at his back, grabbing his jaw and pulling him back in for another kiss. Their heavy pants filled the air, intermittent groans escaping their lips when there wasn’t a mouth there to swallow it up. Every “Cas,” was echoed with a “Dean, Dean, Dean,” and the sandy haired hunter was fairly sure that nothing would ruin this moment.  
“So beautiful, Dean, so beautiful, you are--” The ex-angel paused and Castiel dragged his teeth down the hunter’s jaw, letting hot puffs of breath trail down his flesh which elicited a low groan from the hunter. The fallen angel mumbled something into his cheek before drifting towards the man’s ear and giving the lobe a bite. “O iustus es anima summum caeli et terrae sanctius militiae caelestis, Deus ipse formosior,”  
Mental question marks fired off in Dean’s head, but damn if that wasn’t the hottest thing anyone had ever said to him during sex. “What was that?” Dean asked breathlessly, fingers clutching at the ex-angels shoulders and scrabbling for purchase.  
“Oh righteous man,” Cas whispered, leaning his head down to suck a bruise onto Dean’s neck. “You are the brightest soul on heaven and earth,” another kiss. “More holy than the heavenly host,” a bite to the meat between his neck and shoulder, and Dean moaned. “More beautiful than God himself,”  
“What happened to virgin Cas?” Dean remarked, voice like tyres on gravel and desperately searching for a spare breath. The hunter slipped a hand down his back and grabbed the belt loop at the back of his pants, yanking the angel up for a rough kiss. Castiel dragged himself away after a minute, staring at the hunter. “Noli esse exasperans, Dean Winchester." The angel placed his hands on Dean’s cheeks and brought their foreheads together. “Do not provoke me, Dean Winchester.” “Yeah?” the man challenged, staring up at blue eyes through hooded lashes. “What makes you think you can stop me?”  
And in the blink of an eye, Castiel’s hands wrapped around Dean’s wrists and pinned them above his head. “Nothing. I believe you will submit without question and without hesitation. You will remember that I was the general of a garrison of celestial beings in my previous life.” Okay, so maybe that turned him on just a little bit. The hunter squirmed slightly and allowed a breathy moan to escape his lips, and though the angel’s grip tightened Dean didn’t miss the undeniable darkening of his eyes.  
Short breaths were drawn and the hunter writhed on the sand as though he were dying of the pleasure electrifying his veins. Lips and tongues were lost in a mess of heat and desire, fingers running aimlessly across vast expanses of yet un-exposed skin. The fallen angel ravished the man beneath him with worshipping kisses and touches, moaning his name while Dean attempted to give as good as he got.  
"I am sorry, Dean, for I have failed you in all things," Cas whispered, pressing his lips reverently against Dean's. "No," the man breathed back, unable to meet his eyes. "You're not a failure. Not to me."  
The angel shuddered as Dean reached up and tangled his fingers in Castiel's hair, biting down on his lover's bottom lip.  
At that the dark haired man swept down and again kissed Dean within an inch of his life. Dean pretended that he didn't recognise the warm wet tears on his cheeks. He couldn't tell whom they belonged to.  
Castiel pulled away, eyes devouring Dean's sweaty, shaking form. "Clothes," he breathed, and Dean nodded enthusiastically. The angel's instantaneous response was to pull Dean off the sand and literally tear his shirt off. He ain't an angel anymore but he sure as hell's got the muscles of one, he mused. The cold night air hit him like a freight train left him shivering. "I'll keep you warm," Cas whispered, and Dean shivered once more though not from the cold. The hunter nodded and began to unbutton his cheap dress shirt and proceeding to drag it past the ex-angel's shoulders and throw it aside on the sand, landing in a crumpled heap. He elected to not remove the tie, however, which he used to his own advantage. He slipped two fingers under the knot and pulled him down to a bruising kiss, the two of them working at removing slacks and jeans.  
Dean pulled away just a fraction of an inch, staring up at his angel through hooded eyes. He parted his lips and dragged his gaze across his now bare chest. It wasn’t as though Castiel was so cut, but he had a body like a runner or a swimmer; slim but defined muscles and pale skin, a lengthy torso and well-built calves.  
"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful..." Dean dragged his calloused palms up Castiel's sides and dug his nails into the spaces between his ribs, and Castiel erupted with a smoky, ebony dark moan and he groaned. "Ouhhh, Dean," Castiel breathed, lowering his mouth over the hunter's collarbone to suck a mark there. Rough teeth dragged over the sensitive goose-pimpled flesh and a soothing tongue followed.  
A throaty, guttural groan spilled past his lips and into the air, clouding it with lust.  
Hands reached up to grab at Castiel's hair, the long curls at the nape of his neck, the shorter strands on the back of his head, the long hairs on the top of his skull. He loved everything about him. Fingers gently carded through his hair then gripped and pulled as Castiel ground his pelvis down viscously.  
Dean groaned hotly, chasing the warmth and welcome of Castiel's lips. "Dean," the angel hisses, teeth clenched in pleasure. He lowers his mouth over Dean's pulse point and that's about it for Dean.  
"Cas, please, I'm gonna--"  
Dean closed his eyes and let the waves of ecstasy roll through him, only able to gasp and pant the fallen angel's name and grip his shoulders. The hunter released all tension from his muscles as he stretched beneath his lover on the shore of the moonlit lake. How romantic, Dean thought, some hushed corner of his mind speaking out.  
"I love you so much, Dean."  
Starlight and a soft wind lick at his skin. How had it taken them so long to get to this? Dean's lips form a soft "o", blowing in and out and concentrating on his breathing.  
"Me too, angel," the hunter murmurs. "Did you--" Dean starts, and Castiel places a firm hand over his mouth to silence him, and soon the hand is replaced with his lover's warm lips. Chapped but soft and pliant and red and kiss-bitten and everything Dean wants.  
"I'm okay," the ex-angel says as he rolls off of him. Castiel presses chaste kisses against the other man's neck, eyelids fluttering and breathing slowing. "I love you so much Dean." It's a statement and there is no room for the hunter to be uncomfortable, and somehow he isn't. "Hester was right. The moment I laid a hand on you in hell I was not the same. And I do not regret any moment after that."  
Dean sighs like the wind going out of a sail and settles into his angel.  
"Good."


End file.
